 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| A view of St. Charles Avenue from Tivoli Circle in 1875. It was called Tivoli Circle, or sometimes Tivoli Gardens, because of the Tivoli Carousel located there. From the beginning, Tivioli Circle was an important point in the city, linking upriver and downriver. It was a common meeting point and a popular place to gather for Mardi Gras parades. In the late 1870's, a monument to Robert E. Lee was erected and it became known as Lee Circle. |
 |
| St. Charles Avenue branches out from the circle to the left in this photo. The building directly to the left of the monument was the old main branch of the Public Library. The large building a block up St. Charles is the Jerusalem Temple. The short white building to the right of the monument was the Sherrouse-Steele Motor Car Company. Behind it, the large building with the two towers was the old Temple Sinai. Of these buildings, only the Jerusalem Temple remains. Image is ca. 1920-30. |
| You can see from the aerial view from Lee Circle above in 1953 and the 2007 photo of the same intersection below, that the 3-story Texaco garage in the center of the picture has been replaced with a modern service station, but the white building to the right is still there. In the picture above, Hibernia Bank (with its dome) stands out as the tallest building, but, since that time, several much taller buildings have come up around it. |
| Above, main branch of the Public Library at Lee Circle, 1917; directly below, 1925; 2nd picture below, the library, late 1940's. Built with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie, the main branch of the library stood at this location from 1908 to 1958, when it was sold after the construction of a new central library on Loyola Avenue. The old building was demolished by John Hancock Insurance who built a new office building on the site. The building was eventually purchased by the K & B drugstore chain, and called K & B Plaza. As far as I know, the building is currently for sale. |
| Mardi Gras revelers at Lee Circle, 1901; Temple Sinai's towers can be seen in the background. |
| Saenger Halle at Lee Circle, 1890; written on the photo: "German Singing Society; Theatre for Saegner Fest; demolished and replaced by Public Library." |
| Tivoli Circle, some time before 1877. |
 |
| In this 1920 view of Lee Circle, the old library can be seen on the right and the Hotel Bienville on the left; the hotel is now an apartment building - aptly named the Tivoli Apartments. The old house visible next to the hotel is said to have started its life as a plantation before the city grew up around it. It's still standing today - looking quite the worse for wear - and now houses the Circle Bar. If only the old house could talk, the stories it could tell about the city's history! |
| Hotel Bienville, 1941. |
| View of Lee Circle from K & B Plaza (the site of the old library), looking toward the Le Cirque Hotel, 2007. |
| From the top, the 1st, 4th, 5th, 11th and 13th images on the page are courtesy of the excellent and prolific New Orleans photo-chronicler Infrogmation, at Wikimedia Commons. |
| The link to this page is: http://old-new-orleans.com/NO_Tivoli_Circle.html Back to Old New Orleans The Past Whispers - Home |
|